As Jamelle Bouie writes, there was something irritating about a Democratic president crowing about corporate profits at a time when the unemployment rate still rides north of 9 percent, not that it stopped Georgia Republican Paul Broun from accusing Obama of believing in "socialism."
One thing the president did do was comment implicitly on Rep. Peter King's upcoming Muslim HUAC hearings, when discussing national security and terrorism:
Of course, as we speak, al Qaeda and their affiliates continue to plan attacks against us. Thanks to our intelligence and law enforcement professionals, we are disrupting plots and securing our cities and skies. And as extremists try to inspire acts of violence within our borders, we are responding with the strength of our communities, with respect for the rule of law, and with the conviction that American Muslims are a part of our American family.
During the 2008 campaign, the president made a concerted effort to distance himself from Muslims in order to quiet the rumors that he was one. But since Muslim-bashing has moved into the Republican mainstream, he's made it a point to rhetorically contest the notion that the American Muslim community is comprised of subversives trying to destroy the country.
Rhetoric, though, particularly on matters of the rule of law and national security, is just about all the president has left. As Josh Gerstein pointed out yesterday, while Obama vowed to veto any bill with earmarks, he nevertheless signed a ban on federal funds for trials of Gitmo detainees despite arguing the ban would harm national security.
That kind of behavior is precisely why the GOP has been so successful on this front. The president has always talked as though closing Gitmo was a vital national-security priority, but the actions of his administration have always made it seem like it really was just talk. Earmarks are less than 1 percent of the federal budget, and the money that isn't appropriated by legislators is merely spent by the executive branch. It's hard to see how that rates a veto, but a ban on Gitmo trials doesn't, unless you assume that the ban doesn't harm national security, and keeping Gitmo open isn't a big deal.
